You may have noticed photos of my heart posted here in the background or over in the right hand column as I worked away. Obviously my colors are totally different. That's because I bought the instructions used without any of the threads and beads that come in the kit. I planned to substitute items from my stash. But what colors? Should I stick with an Elizabethean look or choose favorite colors?

I am no good at picking colors that will work together so I decide to cheat. I google'd Japanese kimonos and choose my favorite--a wedding kimono made by Chiso--then picked the colors from that. You can see the kimono itself in the background of Blog and you can also see it on the Chiso website. Just click on the arrows to cycle through their lovely pieces.http://www.chiso.co.jp

The colors I came up with are dark plum, persimmon, harvest gold, and lime green with gold, emerald and ruby touches for the jewelry along with pearls. The heart is stitched on white Congress cloth. I had only blue and ecru so I chose to use the ecru rather than buy new.

Then I had to go through the instructions very carefully, listing all the colors used for each part. That way I knew charcoal silk floss was used in the original for the blackwork. Then I went through my stash, looking for colors from the kimono that I had in silk flosses so I knew what I had to use on my version of the blackwork. Make sense?

It took a lot of rummaging and planning and I did change my mind several times, using the harvest gold only once and changing a gold area to lime green, but I finally came up with a pretty unusual color scheme. When I finish the heart I'll post a photograph of the final look, with apologies to Gay Ann Rogers and thanks for a very interesting design.